What did you want to be when you grew up? I waffled between professional baseball player and fighter pilot when I was really young. Then I went through a phase of wanting to be an architect or to anchor SportsCenter. The latter of those indirectly led me here, which is at least in the right industry.

I’ll guarantee none of you ever said you wanted to grow up to be a YouTuber. Or a TikTok star. But those are some of the top answers that children give today to that question. 

A few years ago, we would laugh. Today, we probably still do, but we shouldn’t. 

An online content creator, or influencer if you will, is a skilled craftsperson whose earning potential in today’s world far exceeds that of most of the jobs these kid’s parents have. To laugh at them and dismiss that career path because we think it’s short-sighted and foolish, only exposes us as being short-sighted and foolish. 

My friend Arik Hanson had blog post last week that caught my attention. Arik is a social media and public relations consultant, speaker and influencer in his own right based in Minneapolis. He’s also one half of Hanson & Hunt, a great PR and communications podcast that is also on the Marketing Podcast Network along with this show.

Arik’s post last Tuesday was titled, “Will your kids go to school to be professional social media influencers?”

I know. Most of you chuckled at the notion. But you shouldn’t. I’ll tell you more about why in today’s commentary.

Today’s show also features reference to my daughter’s young adult book review channel on YouTube and encourages you to add a subscription to my YouTube channel, now including a version of this podcast, so her 200 or so more followers than me can perhaps stop being a source of personal embarrassment. Heh.

And we also highlight our first listener voice mail today. Marc Duke, a B2B influencer consultant and all-around CMO brain for hire in Great Britain, had some comments and a question about last week’s commentary on influencer consultants.

This episode of Winfluence is presented by Tagger. It is a complete influencer marketing solution. You can find out more for yourself at jason.online/tagger. 

In this episode, we visit with Alexandra Walsh from 3 Day Blinds, a premium window treatment brand, about how she uses Tagger. 

To start building your own experiences with my influencer marketing software of choice, go to jason.online/tagger today.

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